A strange revelation, to say the least

"What do you mean, about Chloe...?" Zack interrupted his friend mid-sentence, while they where just discussing what was taking the other three girls such a long time to get back down to the cabin again. He'd practically assumed that Heather would have come rushing right after them as soon as she heard about her cousin, even if the two of them certainly wasn't at good terms all of the time, and was getting quite impatient about being **** to wait for them.

"Well..." Gavin stuttered nervously, with a quick glance towards Vicky, who was currently busy trying to help Brandon get Kurt into one of the beds. The reason he lowered his voice was quite obvious though, once he'd managed to confess what he'd been trying to do back up there in the woods.

"What the hell were you thinking...?" Zachary just stared at him in disbelief for a couple of seconds, but then finally took a deep breath to calm himself down. He too already knew all too well that there was quite a lot going on here that none of them seemed to have any control of whatsoever, and so he couldn't really put any further blame on his good old friend than he'd been willing to take upon himself.

The important part was that nothing really happened, or so he tried to tell himself at least...

"So, they might still be looking for her...?" He finally tried to assess the situation, and decided the best thing was to call the hospital on his own, without waiting for Heather to get there and help with an address to the cabin or call for her parents or Kurt's.

"Wait, she actually got her phone with her...?" Zack realized as he was looking at his own, and remembered full well that she and Gavin were the only ones to bring them with them up to the waterfall. Gavin obviously didn't have his own with him, as he'd never got back to the falls himself, but hoped that Ash or one of the others would remember to bring it with them, along with his clothes...

A short time earlier, back at the top of the falls, where the water was running freely from the rocky ledge, and then continued all the way down to the Silver lake itself:

"So, that's where you've been hiding...?" Heather smiled as she'd managed to follow the quiet redhead all the way up to the top of the cliffs, but stopped herself from making any snotty remarks as she realized there could be a good reason for the girl to keep her distance between them. It wasn't all too hard to figure what all this could be about either, and it wasn't just about what she and Zack had been up to just a short time earlier.

"Look..." She tried to start the whole conversation over, but found that she still sounded like she was an adult talking to a kid or something like that. It really wasn't how she wanted to relate to herself, but sometimes she could fully understand why not everyone could like her just as much as all the boys that only ever saw her sexy exterior. "I know you and Zachary has been friends for a very long time..."

"Yeah?" Chloe just looked right back at her with the slightest hint of a smile on her lips, which was actually just enough to catch the busty cheerleader a little off guard. She'd always assumed the other girl was always the shy type, like she appeared around most of the people she knew, but was suddenly reminded that there was at least one guy she wasn't very shy around at all. "So, what's your point...?"

"Umm, well..." Heather found herself at a lack of words for a moment, and during that time her eyes looked away from the other girl's face, in search for something less intensive.

That's when she noticed the thick pipe, sticking out of the thick vegetation just a short way up the stream and dribbling some kind of fluid into the otherwise clear blue water.

"What the hell's that...?" She asked out loud, while for a second forgetting completely about the other girl in front of her. Chloe didn't seem to mind the interruption to their conversation though, and a curious frown appeared on her face as well when she noticed what Heather had found.

"Looks like some kind of drain-pipe...?" The redhead suggested as they both stared down a trail of freshly disturbed vegetation, to where it was cut off by a new-looking fence even further up the hill. "Is there some kind of industry, or a factory out here...?"

"No, not that I know off." Heather was deeply troubled by this kind of discovery, and even more so as she looked back to the substance that dribbled out of the pipe's end. There wasn't a lot of it coming out of there, but quite enough to cause substantial damage to the natural environment if it was in any way dangerous to living beings.

It was the color of the stuff that startled her the most however, as she might have expected some muddy waste to come from a pipe like this, but instead she could see it being clearly pink in nature, before it dissolved completely in the running water. "Just... what the heck is that stuff...?"

"Hey, Heather!" The two of them were suddenly interrupted by a third one, as Ashley managed to clamber up the side of the cliffs. She was quite out of breath, and looked like she had something important to tell them, but cut herself short as they pointed her to the pipe coming out of the bushes.

"Hey, isn't that dangerous...?" The newcomer was still panting after the steep climb, but held her breath for a second while Heather leaned down across the water to poke at the strange, pink liquid with a short stick. Then she and Chloe just stood back and watched as the brunette lifted it back up again and cautiously touched the tip of it with her fingers.

"I... don't think it's really dangerous." She said after a couple of moments, while confirming that the stuff was practically odorless, and barely left a single trace after making contact with ordinary water. The effect of it was all the more obvious however, and she found herself gritting her teeth as she was subjected to a much too familiar sensation from somewhere deep inside of her.

It was quite exactly the same that she'd felt after spending some time swimming in the lake last noon, or even more like she'd experienced while she was making out with Zack underneath the waterfall...

"I think we should avoid drinking or swimming in the water though..." She continued eventually, while hurrying back down the side of the cliffs again. A few moments later she returned with the bottle of water she'd brought from the cabin, and quickly emptied it by the side of the stream, before filling it up anew directly from the source. "And I think we should call for the local rangers as well. They'll definitively want to have a look at this!"

"Oh, yeah...!" Ashley suddenly seemed to remember something, just as Heather was about to pick up her phone from the bundle of clothes on the ground, and caused her to stare back at her in the very same moment as the phone started ringing in her open palm.

"And by the way, your cousin broke his arm on his way back down to the cabin...!"